“Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.”
Modest Mussorgsky
As philosopher Richard Wollheim says, art is “one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture.” In its simplest manifestation, art is a form of communication that serves as a vehicle for the expression of emotions and ideas. As ideas and beliefs are culturally specific and constantly changing over time, there really is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art. That being said, the classical branches of the visual arts are identified as painting, sculpture and architecture. Literature and poetry are considered part of the humanities or as one of the arts, while music, alongside theatre, film and dance belong to the performing arts. In this section you will discover not only specific explorations of individual art forms, but also a more detailed probing of the relationship between the visual arts and music, including painting and music, sculpture and music and architecture and music. Originally, poetry and music were treated as a unity, but gradually they have become more independent. Nevertheless, the two art forms have never forgotten their shared genetic makeup, and been intertwined for millennia. Art and music have engaged in a dynamic relationship that reveals a diverse range of human activity intended to be appreciated for their beauty.
Richard Strauss used the world of literature in his song settings, from sixteenth-century poems by Shakespeare to the poems of his contemporaries such as Richard Dehmel. His experience in writing operas also developed his song-writing abilities. His first song, “Weihnachtslied’
The signs of greatness can include many things, but being crowned by Apollo, the god of music and the arts (among many other attributes), is a definite signal. Marc’Antonio Pasqualini (1614-1691) was a celebrated male soprano from Rome, first singing
As part of his six 1927 music paintings, Arthur Dove did three on George Gershwin’s music and one on Irving Berlin’s music. The link between Dove and these six paintings was Paul Whiteman and his Experiments in Modern Music concert
George Gershwin started on Broadway and finished on the opera stage. Along the way, he wrote the music that seemed to define the spark and light of the early American 20th century. The roaring 20s and Gershwin’s magic were brought
Musical settings of Heinrich Heine’s poetry must number in the thousands! An intricate response to the charged political environment of his day, not to mention his own turbulent life, Heine was able to create distinct emotions in his poetry. As
When you get two modern artists together, something special happens. In this case we have a composer/painter in Arnold Schoenberg and the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. As the story goes, in early January 1911, Kandinsky, who was in Munich, went
The Viennese art historian Karl Swoboda (1889-1977) sponsored concerts at his home in 1920. One of those present was the artist Oskar Kokoschka. As he listened, he drew 20 chalk portraits of two women in the audience, one of whom
